Upper Voltan presidential election, 1978

Presidential elections were held in the Republic of Upper Volta on 14 May 1978, with a second round on 28 May after no candidate won more than 50% in the first round. They were the country's first multi-party presidential elections, the previous elections in 1965 having Maurice Yaméogo as the sole candidate. The result was a victory for independent candidate Sangoulé Lamizana, who was backed by the Voltaic Democratic Union-African Democratic Rally and won 56.3% of votes in the second round. Voter turnout was 35.2% in the first round and 43.6% in the second.

Background

In 1966, Yaméogo left office after a general strike in opposition to his rule, and was replaced by a provisional military government led by Lamizana. In 1970, a new Constitution was ratified, which was later revised and ratified in 1977. After the passage of the new constitution in 1977, a presidential election was held in 1978.

Results

Candidate	Party	First round		Second round
		Votes	%	Votes	%
Sangoulé Lamizana	Independent	425,302	42.2	711,722	56.3
Macaire Ouédraogo	National Union for the Defence of Democracy	254,467	25.2	552,954	43.7
Joseph Ouédraogo	Rejectors Front-African Democratic Rally	167,120	16.6
Joseph Ki-Zerbo	Voltaic Progressive Union	162,031	16.1
Invalid/blank votes		19,695	–	18,870	–
Total		1,028,653	100	1,283,546	100
Registered voters/turnout		2,924,785	35.2	2,947,527	43.6
Source: Nohlen et al.